By now it's commonplace to take about biofuels driving up the price of food (though some say this effect is overstated since food prices are rising all across the board) and encouraging deforestation. Similarly, the price of silicon is dropping, which means cheaper solar energy -- But silicon production creates large amounts of very toxic waste.
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Some more news on the 17th Karmapa's visit to the United States. He arrives May 15th and stays until June 2nd, and will visit New York, Boulder, and Seattle. (Recall the Karmapa controversy: there are two claimants.)
Read about the upcoming visit from MSNBC and the BBC.
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Rachel Aspden visits the forgotten part of Burma: ethnic groups in the east oppressed by the junta.
Thailand's Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej voices support for the Burmese junta's farcical constitution referendum, which will again formally bar Aung San Suu Kyi from running for office. The reason given? She's married to a foreigner.
EarthRights International lambasts Chevron:
The American energy giant Chevron has been accused of complicity in human rights abuses through its investment in a natural gas pipeline in Burma. . .
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China doesn't care what you think:
China has stepped up persecution of Buddhist monks with mass detentions, Tibet activists said Wednesday, as China prepares to take the Olympic torch to the top of Mount Everest.
The actions came a day after six monks were given lengthy prison sentences in the first trial of rioters since deadly violence in Tibet's capital last month.
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At heart China is a business, and this turmoil was hurting the bottom line:
China appeared to bend to international pressure on Friday as the government announced it would meet with envoys of the Dalai Lama, an unexpected shift that comes as violent Tibetan demonstrations in western China have threatened to cast a pall over the Beijing Olympics in August.
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When it rains literary nonfiction, it pours: books by not one but two Tricycle contributing editors hit the stacks this July. Memoirist Mark Matousek’s When You’re Falling, Dive: Lessons in the Art of Living tracks the sorrows and triumphs of hundreds of survivors, seeking to answer the question: How does a person survive his own life? Mixed with universal stories of illness and loss are profiles of people who have suffered under extraordinary circumstances—a Tibetan nun who was tortured by Chinese soldiers at the age of thirteen; a Sudanese man who was kidnapped as a child and forced into slavery for ten years. Matousek draws from parables, scientific studies, philosophy, and literature in order to create a nuanced portrait of endurance and meaning wrought from adversity.
The Wishing Year, by Noelle Oxenhandler, tells the story of the author’s experiment with the art of wishing. One New Year’s Day, Oxenhandler decides to change her life.
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